Such A Waste of a Young Heart
by spentnights
Summary: It's not wisdom she gains as she grows older, it's guilt.


such a waste of a young heart

**Characters:** Jenny Humphrey.

**Rating/Word Count:** G / 955

**Summary:** It's not wisdom she gains as she grows older, it's guilt.

(originally posted at burnthe_city at LiveJournal.)

* * *

Jenny Humphrey had always wanted to be a part of that world.

She wanted the glitz and the glamour; she wanted the money and the status and the name that could get you anything.

She found her way in once, found it again – finds it over and over – and ruins it every time.

She ruins everything she touches.

The Sadim touch, she surmises, like the opposite of Midas. Instead of gold, she gets ruin.

Her touch turns something – _everything_ – to ash. Relationships, families, friends – she ruins them all.

One by one, heart by heart, trust by trust: turn to ash, burn away, incinerate against her touch.

She feels the fire, watches the burn. Watches her dreams and her life go up in flames, like her dresses in that garbage can.

(Like the girl she'll never be again)

* * *

She wonders if things will ever feel normal again, like it used to. Like when her family was whole: before her mother left, before she rebelled against her father, before her brother hated her.

When they were the Humphreys and they lived in a loft in Brooklyn, instead of a penthouse in Manhattan.

Before her family became mixed up in this world of lies and deceit. In a world where she was an outsider – a nobody with a common name and handmade clothes – who became queen.

Jenny wonders if she'll ever be the same girl again.

The same little girl who had a mother and a father and a brother who loved her; the girl who dreamed of making it famous as a designer; the girl who wanted to find her prince charming and live her happily-ever-after; the girl who was happy just being herself.

_I'm not Little J anymore. _

Jenny grew up – maybe too quickly – and grew out of those dreams, moved on from fairytales; realized too harshly that real life was not magical.

* * *

Once upon a time she was a girl who wanted too much – so she worked and she fought and when it wasn't enough she used people to get her what she wanted.

Eric. Asher. Nate. Damien. Chuck. Blair. Serena. Dan.

She befriended a lonely little rich boy; played a boy's beard; fell for a golden boy; dealt drugs and her soul and her heart with an ambassador's son; lost it – lost everything – to someone else's king.

She became a dutiful minion for a queen; she watched the golden girl fall and tried to take the place she could never fill; she went against her family, against her life, against this world; she ruled a kingdom that wasn't meant to be hers with an iron fist she swore she'd never have.

(The list goes on and the lies don't stop)

She used people to get what she wanted, what she deserved – what she had _earned_.

It's not really surprising that everyone left her in the end.

* * *

_I know who I am. I won't lose that. _

A lie she told everyone, told herself.

She's never known who she was – not really. She's always been looking for who she was.

(In all the wrong places)

Jenny's been trying to be someone else for so long now that it feels as though she's never really been herself.

* * *

_I don't want to be queen. _

Another lie she told, swore it was the truth. Swore she didn't want the title and the minions and the crown.

(Lie, lie, lie)

Jenny swore she'd be different; told herself that she wasn't like Blair or even like Serena.

She promised herself that she would never change.

But Jenny could never keep promises, especially not her own. She keeps blurring the line between morals and desires, finds herself doing a tight-rope act between her two worlds: the girl from Brooklyn who made her own clothes or the queen of Constance with her designer headbands?

* * *

_I choose you. _

Those three words were all Jenny ever wanted to hear: from her idol, from her knight, from her parents – from everyone.

No one chooses Jenny. Never have, never will.

* * *

'_You can't make people love you, but you can make them fear you_' may be the best and worst advice she's ever been given.

She lies. She steals. She manipulates.

She _rises_.

She betrays. She hurts. She sabotages.

She _falls_.

Jenny rises; Jenny falls.

Play. Stop. Repeat.

It never ends.

* * *

She risked everything she had and everything she was to be a part of this world.

_I lied and I stole and I lost the respect of my family. For what? So I can be like you? _

Jenny wanted this life. She wanted to live spectacularly like a queen with a king in a castle (re: penthouse). She wanted to live the imagined fairytale.

But fairytales turned out to be false and her life was anything but spectacular.

The queen banishes her from her kingdom; and the prince doesn't choose the handmaiden, he chooses the princess. Her family doesn't want her anymore, doesn't trust her anymore.

_You asked me before if it was all worth it._

She lost her family. She lost her friends. She lost herself.

It was all she wanted for so long, but now as she watches the city that was her home go by it doesn't seem worth it.

_And my answer is, it's not._

_

* * *

_

She feels so old, but not very wise – never very wise. Always little Jenny Humphrey, ever-naïve, constantly foolish; tries to rule with her head, but her heart gets in the way.

It's not wisdom she gains when she grows older; it's guilt. Guilt on top of mistakes surrounded by regrets in a world full of ruin that she created herself.

A story for the ages. A lesson to be heard. A cautionary tale.

But Jenny never learns.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed. Please review, if you will. Thank-you.


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